Basho

Yeah! We have started poetry in 4th grade. We started with an "author study' of Douglas Florian, poet and illustrator. This proved to be a great hit. Florian doesn't use a lot of metaphor and simile; his poems are down to earth and short. As my students noted, some make you laugh, some make you sad, and some make you go "hmmm".


We turned to Joyce Sidman to go a little deeper. The class loved her mystery poems in Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow. I registered their enthusiasm for the guessing game (and the fact it really makes them pay attention to the words) and put up a poem each day without the title and asked "Who am I?"

For fun I've been reading Scranimals by Jack Prelutsky. They love it so much they almost stormed the classroom of another teacher on learning that it was locked in their classroom. No self-respecting teacher should be without this book. You don't need sub plans if you have Scranimals.

Today, we tackled Basho. My collaborating ELL teacher has a thing about haiku and brought this wonderful picture book to share with the class Grass Sandals : The Travels of Basho by Dawine Spivak and illustrated by Demi. This is a great introduction to the ultimate master of haiku. It tells of his travel by foot across Japan and how he was inspired to write his poems. It includes haikus by Basho and his successor Issa.

hibiscus flowers

munched up in the horse's mouth

eaten one by one
-Basho

winking in the night
through holes in my paper wall-
moon and the Milky Way
-Issa